Skirts

Dear Mr Marchessini (successful businessman, author, tennis and bridge player who loathes hypocrisy in all its guises and UKIP donor)

I recently read your blog post entitled Skirts in which you argued that the fact that women are wearing trousers more than they did in the olden days when they didn't have the vote, couldn't sit on a jury and weren't allowed to report if they'd been raped by their husband, has had a 'disastrous' effect on relations between men and women. It was an interesting read, it really was.

Just a few questions for clarity:

You say that during the rise of feminism in the 1970s, women wore trousers because they wanted to 'look like men'. How do you know this is why they did it? Did you ask them all? Did they look like men? Because if they did, how come they still got raped and stuff?

You say that trousers are designed for men's bodies. Are women's trousers designed for men's bodies, too?

You say that fat women wear trousers in order to pretend that they're like everyone else. Is that also why fat women have jobs and friends and live in houses and go on holiday and read books and drive and know how to talk? To pretend that they're like everyone else? 

You seemed really upset when you wrote that men have become wimps and are too afraid to 'tell' the women in their lives how to dress. Well, there was this woman I knew once whose husband kept telling her what she could and couldn't do - including what she could and couldn't wear -  and after a while, she got really, really sad and really, really tired and her hair fell out and then she had to go to the hospital for a few months to have a big rest. Her husband was given a restraining order. Which do you think is more upsetting: what happened to the man or what happened to the woman?

You say that the birth rate in Germany has fallen and you seem to suggest that this is because women don't wear skirts any more. I was just wondering what you thought of this as an alternative explanation (David Attenborough said it): Wherever women have the vote, wherever they are literate, wherever they have the medical facilities to control the number of children they bear, the birth rate falls. Do you think it's weird that he didn't say anything about women wearing trousers? Maybe you should call him?

At the end of your blog post you say, there is a basic fact of life that women do not grasp - skirts give erections but trousers do not. I've looked in some science books to read this fact of life for myself but I couldn't find it ANYWHERE. Can you point me in the right direction? With your finger?

What are your views on culottes?

Have you ever met a person?

Oh, and you also once referred to Jennifer Lopez as a 'Mexican tart'. That's not a question, that a 'just-saying'.

Bye

A Letter to a Judge

Hello

You are a nice man

That's what the interpreter said when R's appeal hearing finished the other day

He was a nice man

You probably are

Most people are nice, aren't they?

When all's said and done?

So, just for the record

This letter isn't about you being not nice

It's about other stuff

It's a question, really

About what happened after the appeal hearing

When you called R back into the room

And gave her your decision

That she was fit for work

It was a bit of a shock, to be honest

Because R's case was supposed to be one of those 'easy' appeals

An open and shut case

A no brainer

Because of how demonstrably unwell she is

And how awful and nightmarish her life has been

And because of that report from her psychologist

Which was written a few years ago

When R was claiming asylum

Which went into graphic detail

About her terrible experiences

And how they have shaped her mental state

And how she would probably never recover

By the way, this isn't a naive letter

It isn't a hysterical rhetoric

About how the law isn't fair and needs to be changed

No

Because the law was clearly on R's side

In more ways than one

The third-party evidence about her said so, too

But you decided it didn't, for some reason

And you're The Judge

So what you say goes

It was baffling

And disheartening

And, for R, the start of another uphill struggle

Because now she has to go and sign on

And decide what kind of job she'd 'like to do'

And fill in her forms

And look for a job

And impress people at interviews

And if she doesn't look for a job in the way that she's told to

Which she probably won't because, frankly, she's too fucked to know what day of the week it is a lot of the time

Her money will stop

So, here is the question:

If you had a daughter in her early twenties 

Who was made to watch her mother and sisters being raped and murdered

And was then taken by militia to a tiny cell

And chained up

And made to sleep on a concrete floor

And systematically raped and tortured every day for two years

And beaten to a pulp

And who then one day managed to escape

Fearing for her life

And fled to another country on the other side of the world

And who slept in a tunnel for three days after arriving

Because she didn't know where to go

And who was terrified most of the time

And whose psychological report

Said that she had a severe depressive illness

And complex post-traumatic stress disorder

With symptoms including

Frequent nightmares

Flashbacks

Abject fear

Blinding headaches

And wanting to die

And that even if her life got markedly better

She would probably never recover from it

And who couldn't develop relationships with other people

Because she was too scared to look them in the eye

And who couldn't even function enough to notice that she needed to have a wash

And who spent most of her time sitting and staring into space

Because of the amount of horror in her head

Would you do everything you could to protect her

From the system

That you know can be very cruel indeed

And would you do everything in your power

To make sure that she got the massive rest she deserved

Or would you tell her to to go and look for a job?

A-Z #12

Things We Have Learned From The Film, Oblivion

Andrea Riseborough does acting
Books save lives
Command centres might be evil
Delta Sleep helps your make-up stay on 
Even after a catastrophic war, a good sense of style is everything
Flowers might be evil
Getting Away From It All makes the weather better. FACT.
Have a look at this
In post-alien-invasian New York, you will find a dog
Just because you're ONAMISSION doesn't mean baseball is dead
Kurylenko doesn't have any good anagrams
Lip balm, shampoo, razors and other grooming products are a gift from God
Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman
Nearly bleeding to death is sexy
Objects might be evil
Private swimming pools are an absolute must in times of hopelessness
Quests make you dirty so you need to have lots of showers
Resistance movements are really in to steam punk
Some trees and plants and stuff grow really, really, really, really, really quickly
Tom Cruise's arms are made of footballs
Upside-down triangles aren't always what they say they are, guys
Vinyl makes everyhing better. FACT.
Wall-EMoonIndependenceDayTotal RecallPlanetoftheApesOBLIVION
X-ray
You know you're going to be ok when there's a Bob Hope doll in your cockpit
Zoo

People are Nice

A-Z #11

New, From the For Dummies Series

Abject Poverty, For Dummies
Blowing Stuff Up, For Dummies
Channel 4 News, For Dummies
Driving While Crying, For Dummies
Eating While Crying, For Dummies
Fucking While Eating and Crying, For Dummies
Getting Out the House More, For Dummies 
Having Things to Talk About, For Dummies
Ikea, For Dummies
Just Say No! For Dummies
Knowing how to Spot Fake Uggs, For Dummies
Lemony Things, For Dummies
Making Every Photon Count, For Dummies
Noodles Vs Pasta, For Dummies
Owning Up to Things, For Dummies
Paying for Stuff, For Dummies
Quorn: What it is and What it Means, For Dummies
Real Life Experiences, For Dummies
Suburbia, For Dummies
The Third Eye, For Dummies
Understanding Stuff, For Dummies 
Veering Towards Disaster and How to Avoid it, For Dummies
When to Call it a Day, For Dummies
Xraying Stuff, For Dummies
Yachts, Yachting and Yacht-Related Stuff for All Yaght-Loving Dummies
Zoo

Bedroom Tax

P is a single parent with five children. She lives in the local authority property she was offered nearly five years ago. It has five bedrooms.

P is disabled. She has a lot of difficulty walking due to injuries in her spine and legs. She also suffers from severe migraines, the pain from which radiates down her face, neck and arms. She has a history of periods of acute depression and suicide attempts.

P recently had to leave her job because she was not well enough to carry on. She made a claim for the out-of-work benefit Employment & Support Allowance (ESA) but her claim was turned down after she was assessed by a medical professional employed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Her assessment lasted less than twenty minutes and she was not asked any questions about her mental health. P is in the process of appealing this decision but the stress of the appeal and the fear of being unsuccessful is making P's migraines worse and more frequent.

This week, P received a letter from Bristol city council, the local authority that placed her in her current accommodation, to tell her that, under new government guidelines, she would soon be seen as having a 'spare bedroom' and that this would affect her entitlement to Housing Benefit.

P's four youngest children are a pair of girls and a pair of boys, all under the age of sixteen. Because of this, the letter says, each pair can legally share a bedroom, thus leaving one bedroom for P's eldest daughter of 16, a bedroom for P and an unoccupied bedroom. The letter from the council went on to say that having this unoccupied bedroom would mean that her Housing Benefit would be reduced by fourteen per cent. This is the 'bedroom tax'.

P is poor. She was not earning a great deal on the checkout at a supermarket while she was working, although she was getting a bit extra in the form of Working Tax Credit, enabling her employer to continue to pay her a pittance rather than a decent, living wage. She battled with herself for a long time before she decided to leave her job. She says that she was at breaking point because of the impact her work was having on her health problems. Now that she has been turned down for ESA, the money she receives while she is appealing is much less than it would be if her claim had been successful. Her appeal is likely to succeed but this does not mean that the appeal will be heard any quicker. The bedroom tax will come into force in April. P will be lucky if her appeal is heard before then. If P can't afford to pay the shortfall in her rent that these new rules have caused, she will face homelessness again.

A fourteen per cent reduction in Housing Benefit is a lot of money to P. It seems absurd that the very authority that decided a five-bedroom house was appropriate and right for her less than five years ago is now forced to penalise her by ruling that she is under-occupying. On the back of the letter to P from Bristol city council there is a list of 'options' for P to consider. These include working more hours (most people who work part-time do so because they are not given the choice to work full-time; they can't simply 'decide' to work more hours), moving to smaller accommodation (easy!), applying for a discretionary housing payment (these are very sparse indeed and rarely given out) and, lastly and arguably most laughable, getting 'further advice', as if there lies, in the oracle of all advice centres, a beautiful solution to this problem.

Some people might say that this bedroom tax is fair enough; that people shouldn't be under-occupying properties; that of course it makes sense to move to smaller accommodation if your house is too big. Maybe. But also, no, it's not fair enough. And the reason it's not fair enough is because it's not fair. 

We need to think about who these people are. We need to think about what their lives are like, the kinds of choices they have. It's a very, very different kind of life when you're chronically ill, clinically depressed, poor, stressed, inarticulate, scared, vulnerable, paranoid and demonised. It's a very different life indeed. P lives in the house that she lives in because very recently the law said she was allowed to. She didn't really make a choice to live there, not in the same way that we choose where we live. P was homeless because she had run away from an extremely violent man. She had no choice but to run away from him or he probably would have killed her. The house she lives in isn't great. It sounds massive, doesn't it? A five-bedroom house. Well, P has five children so it's about the right size for them all, even though the bedrooms are absolutely tiny. When we think of a five-bedroom house, we think 'a lovely, spacious, airy five-bedroom house'. We need to think again.

We might think that it doesn't sound that hard for P to move to a smaller property; we might think that it sounds like a bit of a pain in the arse but ultimately not too much of a pain in the arse. Well, for a vulnerable person like P it will be really hard. Moving house is expensive, especially when you don't have a car and don't drive. P is scared that in order to move into a smaller property, she might have to move nearer to where her ex-partner lives which is a terrifying thought for her. This might be an irrational fear but it's a very real one for P. At the moment, she lives in a house that is near a bus stop, near to shops and her children's schools and the doctor. It's good for her because she doesn't have to walk too far and be in too much physical pain to live a decent life. She'll need a lot of support to move. P had a support worker but this had to end because the service was only available to her for one year.

Also, it's not unlikely that when P's children leave home, they'll find it difficult to find work, which will mean that they might have to sign on for a while. But they'll have a tough job finding their own rented accommodation that accepts people on Jobseekers Allowance. One of David Cameron's ideas for young people in this situation is that they move back in with their parents. How will P's children do that if every year one of her children leaves home, she is forced to move to a smaller property? P thought that when she was offered her house she would be settled for a good while. Sure, she'd probably have to find a smaller property when her kids had all grown up and left, but she probably thought that for the next ten years at least, she'd be able to stay still for a while, make a safe home for herself and her family. She'd had a truly awful life and the house that she was given was the start of something a little bit better.

So what is the answer to this problem of under occupation? The answer is that it's kind of a made-up problem. The answer is that P isn't really under occupying, not really. But we're supposed to think that she's being bad. And greedy. And ungrateful. In a year, when her second oldest child is 16, a four-bedroom house will be inappropriate for her and she will be entitled to a bigger property again. The answer is that the Government has decided to make a new rule up about the amount of Housing Benefit people are allowed to in order to be seen to be taking action in relation to this ugly thing called the Welfare Bill.

P is a very vulnerable person. Most people who live in local authority housing are vulnerable. And all the people who are being affected by the bedroom tax are local authority tenants. We need to think about what that means. A lot of us have a difficult time sometimes; we get a bit depressed, our relationships break up, we don't love our jobs, we wish we had more money, we'd like to go on holiday, we want better clothes. We might have an existential crisis from time to time. Some of us might decide that we need to 'downsize' to save money. But in the midst of all these worries, we exist on a totally different realm compared with the kinds of anxieties and problems in the life of someone like P. We can 'cope'. She probably can't. We are much more free than P to make privileged choices; we have the emotional resources to feel strong and of value because our parents like us and because we can read and because we don't think we deserve it when someone breaks our legs.

A-Z #10

Search History

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Being spat on by a Phillip Schofield in a dream
Can people die for no reason
Does the weather affect the Eiffel Tower
Emails can cause wrinkles
Facebook ruined my career
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YouTube doesn't really exist
Zoo

OMG, He's Cheating!

Dear Louise Van der Velde

I'm quite worried. I was reading an article on MailOnline today. You probably know the one I mean because you're in it. In the article, you wrote a list of the top five things to look out for when you think your husband is cheating. Well, I read the list quite a few times and then I started thinking about some of the things that have been happening in my relationship over the past couple of days. And then I started to put two and two together. And then I was sick all over my knees.

I was wondering if I could take you through the things I've been worried about? I'll use your helpful top five as a backdrop, if that's ok.

1. Intuition: You instinctively know they are behaving differently and something is not right with the relationship.

Exactly! I mean, that's just what I've been thinking! In fact, I'm pretty sure that I've been thinking that exact sentence! I do instinctively know that my boyfriend has been behaving differently! And the reason I know it instinctively is because we spend quite a lot of time together and I can see him being different. And after I've seen him be different, the knowledge that he's being different goes straight into my instincts. And I also know that something is not right with the relationship because I'm constantly comparing my relationship with the ones in films and the telly. Not in a weird way, in a normal way. And what I learn from doing that is that something is not right with my relationship. And then that goes straight to my instincts, too.

2. Dressing differently: The cheating partner takes much more care over their appearance - dressing more provocatively and, if female, pays far more attention to make-up and hair.

Yes. I bought my boyfriend some really lovely new clothes for Christmas and he's been really enjoying wearing them. They're not usually the kinds of clothes he wears; they're smarter and more fashionable than his usual choices and he seems, I don't know, happy about it. I mean, he was really, really grateful for them and seemed pretty excited about it. In fact, the day after I gave him his new clothes, he went out in them. For over an hour. And when he came back, he took them off and had a bath. I should definitely be worried, shouldn't I? And, if female, he would pay far more attention to his make-up and hair. I know this instinctively.

3. Changing sexual behaviour: This can go one of two ways: they go off sex completely with their regular partner or, occasionally, they want MORE sex at home because the affair makes the cheat more sexually active.

Oh, God. This is the worst. My boyfriend and I had some lovely sex this morning and then afterwards, he seemed like he'd completely lost interest in it because he just fell asleep. Actually, this has been the case for our entire relationship; he's really interested in sex just before it happens and then afterwards, he goes to sleep and doesn't want to have sex at all until the next time we have sex. Does this mean he's been having the affair for the whole time I've known him? Oh, by the way, occasionally, my boyfriend wants more sex, so he's totally ticked all the boxes, hasn't he?

4. Becoming hard to reach: You can't get in touch with the cheat on the phone and they change their passwords to their social media sites and mobile phone.

Well. Yesterday, my boyfriend went to 'Devon' for the night with his 'best friend'. He told me he was getting a 'lift back' from his friend's 'mum'. He called me this 'morning' at 8:54am to tell me that he was in Cribbs Causeway (a 'shopping' area just outside Bristol, about seven miles from my address) and that he was going to get a bus 'and' come straight to my house. At 10:25am he still hadn't 'arrived'. I tried calling him 'twice' but he didn't answer his phone either time. He eventually turned up at 10:47am and when I 'opened' my front door he said, 'hello'. WTF?!?!?! By that time, my intuition had seriously 'kicked in'. 

5. Spending more time in the office: They spend more time at work or are increasingly busy with other engagements.

This is a really interesting one. My boyfriend's office is also his bedroom and we spend quite a lot of time in there together. This is obviously a double bluff isn't it? He's clever, isn't he?

I'm so worried, Louise Van der Velde. He's definitely cheating, isn't he? He's totally topped the top five. What should I do? Confront him? Do some psychology on him? Watch Eat Pray Love to get my inner strength back? Move in with my mum? Or his mum? Or should I just make a fish finger sandwich, watch some comedy on the telly and do some farting instead?

Yours

The Waiting Room

The woman arrives at the appeal venue with a friend

Her face says that she's in a lot of pain

She walks very slowly, with a heavy limp, into the waiting room

And lowers herself into a chair very carefully

The clerk introduces herself to the woman

The clerk has what you might call a sunny disposition

Neither the woman nor her friend understand what the clerk is saying

So they agree to wait for the interpreter

The interpreter is late

The woman has to get up and move around and rub her back

Another - older looking - woman in the waiting room watches her do this

The older woman glances at the man next to her

And rolls her eyes to heaven

The interpreter arrives and introduces himself to the woman

He is very tall indeed

The clerk, via the interpreter, explains the afternoon's procedure to the woman

The woman, via the interpreter, asks the clerk various questions

The interpreter interprets

The older woman across the room tuts a few times

The conversation between the clerk and the woman goes on for about five minutes

The older woman across the room is thinking up something to say

It's really obvious

The interpreter and the woman share a joke

There is laughter

The older woman gets the clerk's attention

'Would I get an interpreter if I was Welsh or Scottish or something? I bet I wouldn't'

The older woman looks at the rest of the room for approval

The man next to her chuckles

The clerk smiles at her

'Yes of course; if you need one, we'll provide one'

The clerk turns back to the woman and asks her about her paperwork

The woman gets up from her chair again to rub her legs and back

The clerk asks her if she has any more questions before the hearing

The woman answers via the interpreter

The interpreter says:

'She says she has only one question and that is to God; she asks him to make her well again.' 

Horoscopes #2

December

Sagittarius

Man, woman, happy, sad, open, close, chalk, cheese, black, white, big, small, foul, fair, rice, salad, hats, pens, acne, Portugal, flaky bits, anaerobic exercise, finger food, taxis, squares, some fur... Or: Renee Zelweger. It's up to you.

Capricorn

Text: CAP'C'N033106778830986140229586012790435652866744912234060649 for your horoscope.

Aquarius

Sure!

Pisces

You've been feeling squirmy recently, haven't you? It's because you haven't written your list of things to do before you die. It's ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that you do it within the week. No reason.

Aries

You should probably go and grab a coffee before The Unbelievable Urn arrives.

Taurus

Try not to think of things in terms of nouns, verbs and adjectives this month but more in terms of poids, bludges and srith. You might find that this way of thinking makes things a bit pasty and sinister but it'll do wonders for your love life. Oh, and go and talk to Jane.

Gemini

You know the problems you're having in your relationship? Stop looking them up on the internet. Also, Christmas might be a bit weird for you this year because of all the problems you're having in your relationship. Wear grey.  

Cancer

VOID.

Leo



Virgo

December's DOs: Tracksuits, strip-lighting, ITV2, forks, heather, pub quiz, sugar, ham, pottery, counting to 20 in Italian, milk, knocking your funny bone, thinking about the colour blue.

December's DON'Ts: cotton, The Guardian, agreeing with people, keys, leaning, sex, options, kale, the abdomen, looking at other people's shoes, cars, fainting, films.

Libra

First of all, things aren't as bad as you think. Second of all, if you think you've got money worries now, you might want to hold that thought until next month. Third of all, your domestic situation will change dramatically very, very soon; think small. Fourth of all, it's likely that you're going to be completely found out. Fifth of all, you should probably talk to Jane as well. More than Taurus should.

Scorpio

You shouldn't be so hard on yourself; you're a really, really good person and everyone knows you're doing your best. Give yourself a break. Have a lovely Christmas.